Dear Friends,
Next week is Thanksgiving, our national holiday of gathering and gratitude.
Unfortunately, with the surge in our numbers, we are looking at a lonely Thanksgiving meal and celebration. Yet, from Passover to Rosh Hashannah, we have been through this. We know the bittersweet joys of Zoom seders and Facetime family get-togethers.
There is always room for a simpler and more intimate experience. There is always space for the gift of gratitude.
In fact, it is what I have been hearing most often from our members. They are grateful for the many blessings in their lives, and they see them that much more clearly now. They are thankful for having the basic necessities, and more. They wish to help, to volunteer, and to be involved. While many of us are doing okay, they acknowledge there are those who have been severely impacted by the pandemic and the economic fallout.
They understand that it is in times such as these that we show our commitment to our millennia old vision of community. We work to not let anyone fall through the cracks.
If you would like assistance in finding a Zoom Thanksgiving meal, please be in touch with the office.
As we anticipate a long winter ahead under the pandemic, if you would like to help cook or deliver meals for isolated members, makes phone calls to inquire about other’s well-being, help organize shiva efforts, please click here to register your information with this online form.
Now, more than ever the need for acts of lovingkindness is great. Just an hour of your time making phone calls to our members is a mitzvah (with Rabbinically approved bonus points) and a way to express your gratitude. Please click here to sign up for our online form.
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Now for our weekly question. On Shabbat, our president, Juli Geldner spoke about a question she asked me on how to make prayer meaningful. I recommended several books. She kept coming across the word kavanah. She asked: what is kavanah?
It will be very difficult for me not to write a whole megillah (Scroll) on this question. Kavanah is simply the key to prayer. Our tradition has long understood our approach to prayer in two aspects, keva and kavannah. Keva is the nuts and bolts of prayer. When to bow, the words of our prayers, the order of our prayers. Kavanah is the soulfulness that gives it life.
One can master all of the melodies, our endless pages and words, when to do what, and even the meaning of the Hebrew. But without kavanah, it is dry and meaningless.
As a comparison, if we merely go about our day, interacting with our family members, fulfilling all of our tasks but feeling nothing within, it would be similar to praying without kavanah. Keva is the body and kavanah is the soul.
Kavanah is derived from the word kivun or direction.
It is often translated as intention but can also mean focus and concentration.
Bringing kavanah to our prayer is an acquired skill and habit. It is entering into a prayer service with an intention to hold qualities in our hearts, such as devotion, love, praise, or gratitude. And then we maintain that kavanah and manage the contents of the heart (prayer is also referred to as avodat ha’lev, the work of the heart) through the service. At certain moments, we fill our hearts with gratitude, at others with praise, and there are times when we try to merge with the object of our praise.
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov imagines our prayer service as a person picking flowers for their beloved in a field. They go from flower to flower, with great feeling, picking this one and then that one, until finally they have a great bouquet to hand over to their beloved. And therefore kavanah is what links our whole experience together. The first word of our service is connected to the last through the kavanah, the spiritual direction of our heart throughout our service.
For the duration of the service, we are picking flowers and arranging them together. Finally we offer them up.
It is like when we are first opening the door to greet beloved visitors. We fill our hearts with joy and welcoming, and then we greet them with a feeling of open arms. The feeling stays as we invite them to our table and serve them tea and cookies, and then into the meal and an evening of catching up and of joy.
Our welcome and love for them is fed by their returned enjoyment of spending time with us. This is precisely how it works. When we are able to conjure that feeling within, it evokes a Divine response.
Maintaining kavanah does take concentration and focus (the other meaning of intention). Melodies, shuckling (swaying back and forth) are some of the techniques our tradition has given us.
It may sound difficult and yet, in other areas of our lives, we muster that focus. If we have an important meeting to attend and are walking to it, we are able to stay focused within. In our minds, we go over all of our thoughts, we anticipate the questions that will come our way and our answers. We think about who will be there. We are completely focused in it. Even if there is an accident on the road before us as we walk, we may not turn around to see what is happening. Even if someone asks us the time, we will answer, but our mind will still be on our meeting. If someone calls on the phone, we will answer briefly and respond: “Can I call you back later?” There is a joy that comes purely from being in that state of focus.
Kavanah in prayer is bringing that sustained focus and then opening our hearts to the different emotions within -- fitting either the content of our prayers or just what we are feeling in the moment.
These two aspects of kavanah transform what we do in synagogue into an experience that feeds our soul and brings joy and peace into all of our life.
I wish you a peaceful Shabbat and a Thanksgiving that opens up the doors of true gratitude in your hearts.
Chag Sameach,
Rabbi Adir Glick
